Industrial robot (Unimate)
Robot industrial (Unimate)
- Date
- 1961 · confidence high
- Place
- General Motors plant in Ewing, New Jersey, United States; Unimation, Danbury, Connecticut
- Credited to
- George Devol (patent, 1954) and Joseph Engelberger (Unimation)
- People
- 👤 George Devol1912–2011👤 Joseph Engelberger1925–2015
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A programmable hydraulic arm that unloaded die-cast parts on a car assembly line. It was the first industrial robot and the origin of factory automation.
What it led to
- The automation of the car industry, especially in Japan
- The transformation of industrial employment and deindustrialisation
- Collaborative robots and automated warehouses
Built on
- The word and concept 'robot' (R.U.R.)1920-1921
- Numerical control (CNC) machining1952
- servomechanisms
- nuclear teleoperators
Made possible
- Electric articulated robot arm (Stanford Arm, PUMA)1969-1978
- PUMA robotic arm
- welding robots
- cobots